The typical processing of travelers arriving at an airport in North America from another country is slow and labour intensive, and can lead to long waits and frustrated travelers. The typical process involves having the incoming traveler, or at least one representative traveler per family group, complete a general declaration form for customs and immigration purposes. The completed declaration form will have information about the name and address of the traveler(s), when they left the jurisdiction which they are entering, or if they are not residents of such jurisdiction, how long they will be staying. Other questions on the declaration form are often about the goods being brought into the jurisdiction, such as the value of the goods, and questions about the type of goods (for example agriculture materials, cash, weapons, etc.). The form usually also requires, at a minimum, a signature of the completing traveler.
Once arriving in the jurisdiction, the completed declaration form and passport are manually inspected by a government official, such as a customs or immigration officer. This official marks a code on the form, for use by a second government official controlling the exit point. The traveler waits in a line until they are interviewed by the second official, who determines if the traveler can pass through, or is sent for secondary customs processing.
The entry process is labour intensive, as each traveler must deal with up to two government officials, and this often results in long wait times to reach one or both of the government officials, particularly when, for example, several international flights must be processed at the same time.
One attempt to resolve this problem is with programs that allow frequent cross-border passengers a means of avoiding the long wait times by participating in a pre-screening registered traveler process. An example of such a program is NEXUS, a registered traveler program for self service border clearance into Canada and the United States. The NEXUS program is available to Canadian and United States citizens, and requires payment of an enrolment fee. There are now over 10,000 NEXUS members, who have participated in over 55,000 border transactions. Membership in NEXUS allows travelers to bypass the customs line-ups; however, the number of members is too low to have a significant impact on border line-ups. Further, the additional cost of such registrations creates two classes of passengers, those who have gone through the trouble and expense of pre-registering, and those who have not.
Another attempt to resolve these problems is found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,085,976, which discloses a multi-application passenger card. The card is able to store information including aircraft ticketing and passport information and is readable at various passenger stations that are located in airports and/or on aircraft. In one application, immigration/custom forms are filled out using the card by displaying the form on a card-based template. The form may be stored in the card, via another mobile terminal, or may be downloaded from the airline's database or scanned from a hardcopy. The form is automatically populated where information on the card already exists and allows for passenger input where required. Upon completion, the form is signed via an electronic signature pad. A customs agent subsequently accesses the card to review the passport and immigration/customs form.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0198731 discloses an apparatus and method for expediting the customs and immigration process. A passenger electronically fills out a customs declaration form in the out-bound country and the information is passed to the government in the in-bound country. After each passenger's identity is confirmed, instructions are outputted to a computer interface at the in-bound country's customs and immigration. In one embodiment, a printer prints a ticket with the instructions. A difficulty with this solution is that it requires both the out-bound and in-bound countries to cooperate, share information data sources and use the same, or at least similar, technology.
Other relevant art includes U.S. Patent Application Nos. 2002/0169692, 2004/0078335, 2004/0172364 and 2007/0158418.